Protect your right to know | Editorial

State legislators are looking for ways to pare down a budget deficit projected to be $4.6 billion in 2011-13, and ease recessionary burdens on local governments, too. SB5360 and HB1478 would allow cities and counties to place public notices on their Web sites instead of publishing them in their local newspapers. The idea: to save local governments the cost of publishing those notices in print.

February 1, 2011 1:05 pm

State legislators are looking for ways to pare down a budget deficit projected to be $4.6 billion in 2011-13, and ease recessionary burdens on local governments, too.

SB5360 and HB1478 would allow cities and counties to place public notices on their Web sites instead of publishing them in their local newspapers. The idea: to save local governments the cost of publishing those notices in print.

It’s a bad idea. Any savings would be minimal, particularly compared to the impact on the public’s access to information about what their government is doing.

Let us say up front that letting governments off the hook from publishing public notices in newspapers would impact the newspapers financially. But the reality is the newspaper publication of public notices is an insurance policy that notices are disseminated to the public at the proper times and in proper sequence. Publication of each notice is verified and authenticated by the newspaper’s publisher.

The publishing of public notices in newspapers of record dates to 1789, when the first Congress required publication of its bills, orders, resolutions and votes in at least three publicly available newspapers. The purpose was to require government to report its actions to its citizens in a medium that is independent of government.

Publishing public notices in a newspaper of record ensures that decisions related to public debt, laws, policy, taxation and quality of life are made in the open. It empowers the public to get involved. And it contributes to a reservoir of archived material in a form that cannot be altered, changed, hacked, hidden or manipulated after the fact.

If government Web sites become the sole source of public notices, there would be no way to secure that verification and it would be more difficult for the community to monitor accuracy and compliance with applicable laws.

In an age of audience fragmentation, the local newspaper remains the one forum in which the community comes together to exchange information of common interest — including, most certainly, the activities of local government.

Let your legislator know you want the public notices provision of SB5360 and HB1478 removed. Contact 41st District Sen. Steve Litzow, (360) 786-764; Rep. Marcie Maxwell, (360) 786-7894; Rep. Judy Clibborn, (360) 786-7926.